A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus is used to analyze various organs of the human body by obtaining a two-dimensional scan of the particular organs to obtain data which indicates the health of a patient. The data are generally presented for analyses on two-dimensional photographic films which can be enlarged as desired to bring out the details of the particular body organs under study.
Computer techniques have been developed up to the present time in which such data from an MRI apparatus can be presented on a CRT or LCD screen of a computer in such a way that, when wearing binocular eye glasses, a clinician is able to observe the images of the presented data from the MRI apparatus in three dimensions. Typically, the organ under study is imaged by a computer having a controller, a program and a keyboard which cooperate to cause the image to appear as a two-dimensional image on the CRT screen. The image is caused to rotate about a generally vertical axis which is arbitrarily selected or to translate relative to a predetermined reference so that, when the two-dimensional, rotational image is viewed by a clinician with binocular eye glasses, the image appears to the clinician as a three-dimensional image and appears further to be rotating around the selected axis or translated relative to the reference. Thus, detail of the organ under study can quickly be observed and a diagnosis of the condition of the organ can be made on the basis of the three-dimensional image viewed on the CRT or LCD screen of the computer. While the binocular eye glass viewing of the image on the computer CRT screen is satisfactory, improvements are needed to simplify the presentation of MRI data. The present invention provides such an improvement.